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Nominet is now seeking nominations for member-elected non-executive directors. Working at the heart of the UK internet, Nominet Board directors make decisions to secure a successful future for the company.This year, members will vote for two non-executive directors. Those elected would serve a three-year term.Members of Nominet may propose individuals to stand for election. The person standing does not need to be a member of Nominet, but only members can propose, second and vote.

This month an influential committee of the House of Lords met to discuss the rapid rise in ownership of civilian ‘drones’ and the safety, social and economic impact these are having on the UK. Recognising that this is an exciting and innovative industry from which the UK is already starting to benefit financially, they also questioned the challenges of having many inexperienced pilots taking small mechanised craft and flying them in the UK’s open air space.

Nominet is consulting on a proposed policy to clarify what data about domain-holders is published in the .UK WHOIS and, regardless of what’s published, ensure we have the accurate data essential for running .UK.Our objective is to balance playing our part in running a safe and trusted internet with an increasing desire for privacy online.We’re seeking feedback on two aspects:

By Eleanor Bradley, Chief Operating OfficerAs the single official, authoritative database of .UK domains, Nominet has to balance running a responsible registry with an increasing desire for privacy online. In recent months we’ve seen the emergence of two trends impacting on this.

Starting this year, members who have selected “Contact me by email” as their preferred method for membership-related communications will no longer be posted a printed copy of Nominet’s Notice of Annual General Meeting, Annual Report and Accounts, and Director Elections voting papers.
Members who have selected “Contact me by email” will receive these materials via email. This email is sent to the email address held against the voting contact for the account.

Following the launch of the new .cymru and .wales domains last week, all remaining Premium Names will be available from Tuesday 31st March at 12.00 noon on a first come, first-served basis.This means that over 3,000 ‘premium’ domain names, which include a number of generic terms, such as thevalleys.wales and weekendbreak.wales will be offered to all.These will be available to all .cymru/.wales registrars at the standard, wholesale price.For more information, please click here

.cymru and .wales sell over 5,000 in the first 24 hours, more than a 1,000 in the first hour.
New Welsh domain names - .cymru and .wales - have just passed the five thousand mark, selling over a thousand new domains in the first hour yesterday. The new gTLDS went on sale to everyone at noon on St David’s Day.

St David’s Day marks general availability of brand new .cymru and .wales domains.Nominet, the organisation responsible for the smooth running of the .UK internet, today announces that two brand new domain name endings for Wales - .cymru and .wales – will be available to everyone from St. David’s Day, Sunday 1st March.

Ofcom have today announced that they are going ahead with a UK-wide ‘TV white space’ network. This new network will use the radio spectrum freed up by the closing down of the analogue TV signals. Instead of auctioning this spectrum to the highest bidder, Ofcom have decided to allow anyone to use these frequencies, free of charge. This opens up exciting possibilities in the short-term for connecting grids of sensors together and in the long-term for devices to talk directly to each other and to act together to share information.